The SHAC

The mission statement and the financial model has now been set and we are about to enter into writing the operating standards manual and developing a code of standards for landlords’ houses to ensure that the desire to drive up the quality of private housing in Selly Oak remains at the heart of the scheme. We will also now go out to shop designers and get an image of what the unit will look like, while also starting to think about the recruitment of a lettings manager. When all this is done I will make a comprehensive power-point display to Guild Council. Landlords will be allowed to advertise in the SHAC no matter what but it will be made VERY clear to students which landlords are accredited as people and which of their houses meet the code of standards. This will provide a clear incentive for landlords to improve themselves and their houses.

Money Flushed Away: Reduce Hall Fees

We finally decided to facilitate many students including RAs and other involved students to take direct action around hall fees. We helped them run a large cross campus campaign to show the university the strength of feeling from students on the issue. There was a period of door-knocking for two weeks followed by a day of action. There were many media outlets at the day of action and a petition was presented to the VC by Mark Harrop President of Aitken Wing and Victoria Barber President of Mason Hall. The petition had over 2000 names on it and we had around 150 people on the march to support the campaign. It was a massive success in terms of activism and we engaged many students in direct action, the likes of which, the Guild has not seen in many years.

The outcomes of this led the university to take the four demands on the petition more seriously. The Guild has held meetings with the university and we have received commitments on some of the demands. The decision about Chamberlain is too far away for us to influence any university decision on the matter but they will take our concerns into account when it comes. The point about nominations agreements and the key criteria being cost has proved slightly irrelevant because of the lack of realistic alternatives to Liberty Living halls. However we have had a commitment to a benchmarking exercise with the university to ascertain where the university in terms of price of halls of residence fees. When this shows the university towards the top of the pile they have committed to change the status quo as we asked and reduce hall fees. HAS have also committed to establishing some model of accommodation bursary to help students, which would be advertised at the time of application. We will continue to push hard on this issue into the future.

Apologies and many blogs to make up for it...

Ok, firstly I have been atrociously abysmal at blogging and there are no excuses, I have been busy but I should have found the time! Anyway I will blog now a few times to try and make up for the awfulness.

Firstly RA training was held at the end of last term over a weekend in Cleobury Mortimer near Kidderminster. The RAs received training on their individual remits, representation, managing differences and event planning while also doing team building sessions like bridge building and blindfolded assault courses. All the sabbs attended and many staff too as the team delivered a great training weekend ending with a massive role play session called Fibchester designed to put the skills they learned into action. Thanks to all those involved in the delivery and the RAs that were elected in the by-elections were also trained today.

The RA by-elections went well and there are now full committees everywhere but in Pritchatts Park and Victoria Hall where by-elections will now be held. For the first time we had a recognition event for the by-election, which I think is a massive step forward; the night went well apart from my calamitous reading out of the results!

Many of the steps that were asked to be taken from the internal audit surrounding RAs are in the process of being completed and I will update you on these in the near future.